Vladimir Putin's tightly controlled political system is so weakened by corruption that Russia's paramount leader could face a revolt within five years, the country's most prominent whistleblower Alexei Navalny told Reuters.
Alexei Navalny, who uses the Internet to lampoon the ruling party and expose high-level graft, said Prime Minister Putin was still firmly in charge before a 2012 presidential election.
But he said that unless Putin started to implement reforms and open up the political system, Russia could face an uprising like the Arab Spring protests or the revolts which swept through several former Soviet republics in the early 2000s.
"If they do not voluntarily start to reform by themselves, I do not doubt that this will happen in Russia," the 34-year-old lawyer said in an interview at his spartan offices in Moscow.
